


Time Stands Still

by SEMellark



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, Soul Mate AU, Tragedy, i like torturing myself and others i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 07:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3125330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SEMellark/pseuds/SEMellark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a perfect paradox of life and love, taught to Haruka as a young boy when Makoto held his hand for the first time and told him his eyes were pretty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Stands Still

**Author's Note:**

> I start school tomorrow and I'm in a weird place because of it, so this travesty was born.
> 
> Based on this tumblr post: http://alice-twerkland.tumblr.com/post/107174868241/meme-rage-someone-needs-to-write-this-book

Haruka was nine when his grandfather passed away.

He remembers a lot of sadness where his parents were concerned, and for the first few weeks after the funeral, there was hardly a moment when his mother wasn’t close to the point of tears, because she’d always been close with her father.

None of that really managed to shake Haruka. He was no stranger to death, remembered the typhoon that took Rin’s father and the abrupt death of Makoto’s two goldfish, so he was able to take everything in stride.

What really managed to throw him for a loop was his grandmother’s impeccable composure. She never cried once, not when the heart attack took her husband and not after he was in the ground. She was the one comforting others, smiling serenely and talking extensively about the happy, fulfilling life her husband had lived.

She said that if she could talk with him one last time, he would surely tell her that he had no regrets, and it was for that reason she was able to remain so strong throughout the entire ordeal.

It was actually Haruka’s fault that her resolve broke in the end. He hadn't meant to upset her, but his whole understanding of love and relationships back then was mediocre at best, and he hadn't stopped to think about what it actually meant when someone’s soul mate passed away.

He asked her what her favorite color was. Makoto had been dead set on drawing Haruka’s grandmother a picture, something to lift her spirits, and he’d asked Haruka to find out what the elderly woman’s favorite color was.

The moment the words left his mouth, something in her eyes changed, and they began to water as she observed her grandson.

“Make sure you appreciate your friend, Haruka.” She’d said in form of a reply. He didn’t need to ask whom she was talking about. “And enjoy being able to see while you can.”

That was the day Haruka learned that his grandmother no longer saw in color. The vibrancy of life left her the day her soul mate died, sentencing her to a duller existence for as long as she continued to live.

Haruka couldn’t even imagine what that felt like. For as long as he could remember, everything had been bright and filled to the brim with pigment. He and Makoto saw the world in a way others their age did not. For them, being complete was normal.

In school, he and Makoto were privy to extra lessons that the other kids couldn’t participate in to distinguish one color from the next. There was no point in adding it to the curriculum, for there weren’t many preschoolers who had managed to find his or her soul mate.

When they were little, they had no concept of soul mates. They only understood that the two of them were special, and they used to huddle together in the corner of the classroom to look through picture books together, pointing out the names for the new colors they’d learned.

“See, the ocean is blue!” Most of their conversations went something like that. “Just like your eyes, Haru-chan.”

They bonded over the little secret they shared. Rin and Nagisa used to pout and complain when Makoto would stop to look at flowers of varying shades, or when Haruka pointed out that they had colored the sun purple in their drawings.

Having met Makoto at such an early age, Haruka was used to seeing things differently than his peers. The colors never astounded him, they were just normal, and until his grandfather died, it never occurred to him that they would suddenly just… disappear.

Makoto and Haruka watched everyone grow up around them. Nagisa saw the world anew the day he first caught a glimpse of Ryuugazaki Rei. Rin called Haruka demanding that he teach him about color when he started at Samezuka and met Aiichiro Nitori.

And Haruka was glad his friends could finally see everything the world had to offer. He didn’t quite understand when Rei started bawling the day he learned that Nagisa’s hair was blond and that his eyes were a peculiar shade of magenta, nor could he wrap his mind around Rin’s insistence to wear the brightest clothes on dates, whether they matched or not.

He didn’t quite get it, but then, he also understood completely. It was a perfect paradox of life and love, taught to Haruka as a young boy when Makoto held his hand for the first time and told him his eyes were pretty.

Haruka loved Makoto. He loved his eyes, his smile, his voice and the warmth he always exuded. The closeness they shared was immeasurable. They were life partners in more ways than one. Makoto had been there since the beginning, and although his grandmother warned him, Haruka took him for granted.

He was twenty-one when it happened, poised on a starting block and ten seconds away from diving into one of the largest pools he’d ever swam in. Makoto was supposed to be there, but when Haruka didn’t catch sight of him before the race, he hadn't thought much of it.

As the clock counted down -  _ten nine eight_ \- and as the roaring of the crowd began to die, a door seemed to slam shut within Haruka, and the blue of the pool abruptly fizzled out into a light gray, like a change in contrast on a television screen.

It took Haruka a moment to realize what had happened, but when he recognized the absence of pigment in his surroundings, he immediately recoiled, almost falling off the starting block in his shock and horror.

A soul mate brings perspective and vibrancy into a person’s life. And in death, he or she takes it with them.

It happened to Haruka’s grandmother, and long before he was ready, it happened to him as well.

They postponed the heat he was supposed to swim, and Haruka’s coach and two of his teammates helped usher him to the locker room. That was how Nagisa and Rei came to find him nearly ten minutes later, sitting listlessly on a bench, still in his swimsuit, completely unresponsive.

“Haru-chan?” Nagisa had crouched down in front of him, gray eyes wide and scared as he grabbed Haruka’s hands and held fast. “What happened? What’s the matter?”

Haruka clenched his jaw and _stared,_ trying to remember the exact shade of Nagisa’s hair, eyes, and skin, but he couldn’t no matter how hard he tried, and _that_ was when he began to cry.

“I’m calling Makoto-senpai.” Rei’s voice was a dull roar in Haruka’s ears. The young man wondered if this was how life for his grandmother was until she passed away. When someone’s soul mate died, was sight really the only sense hindered? Because Haruka felt detached from his body, unable to feel Nagisa’s hands in his own, smell the chlorine from the pool, hear everything clearly. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Rei-chan, get Haru-chan a towel. No, not that one! The one hanging on the wall!”

“You mean this green one? What does it matter, he's not even wet!”

“Green is Haru-chan’s favorite color! Maybe it’ll make him feel better until Mako-chan gets here.”

Haruka was the first of his friends to gain color.

First to have it, first to understand it, and first to lose it.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry not sorry


End file.
